A court in Bishkek has sentenced a former Kyrgyz prime minister's son, Altynbek Muraliev, to 12 years in prison on espionage charges.

Ainura Toktosheva, a spokeswoman for Kyrgyzstan's Supreme Court, told RFE/RL that Bishkek's Birinchi Mai district court on May 17 found Muraliev guilty of passing classified materials to the secret services of an undisclosed foreign country.

Muraliev was sentenced the same day at the closed-door trial.

He was working as the head of the Kyrgyz government's department on foreign relations when he was arrested on November 1, 2014.

Muraliev is the son of Amangeldy Muraliev, who was prime minister from 1999 to 2000.

Altynbek Muraliev graduated from a university in Turkey in the early 1990s and later worked for several years at Kyrgyzstan's consulate in Istanbul.